


The Strange Case Of Milippa

by Radiolaria



Series: Meta Essays [15]
Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Archived From Tumblr, Archived From onaperduamedee Blog, F/F, Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, Meta on Fandom, Nonfiction, Shipping, Subtext
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 21:56:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16941459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radiolaria/pseuds/Radiolaria
Summary: A shipping Manifesto: an attempt at understanding the evolution of the Milippa ship over time, before the show started, during the premiere and after canon defined the characters' relationship.





	The Strange Case Of Milippa

**Author's Note:**

> Originally publised on Jul. 16, 2018 on [onaperduamedee](https://onaperduamedee.tumblr.com/post/174926715223/hey-there-feel-free-to-ignore-this-ask-if-its) in answer to an ask from [dimplesridley](http://dimplesridley.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Not discussed here in details although it is worth mentioning: the "ship and let ship" rule. I am interested in the way the ship's perception evolved over time, a very short time at that, and adapted to the curveballs thrown by the show.

> _hey there! feel free to ignore this ask if it's annoying or anything. i'm almost done watching star trek discovery and i entered the michael burnham tags to find it's not just me who ships michael with philippa. although i am curious how did you and others start shipping them? i personally try to ignore the mother/daughter thing they keep mentioning on the show because i like them as a couple so i really don't want to think about that part LMAO_

Milippa shipper ahoy! Hello and welcome to rarepair hell: we have three shoelaces and a Prime Minister ([@nomi–sunrider](https://tmblr.co/mZRBVMfaOIi5JXfeUbmohSA)). Don’t worry, this isn’t annoying at all, it’s even rather comical (I knew that at some point new fans would watch the show, reach episode 4 pretty quickly and go “where the hell does Milippa come from?”), and to be honest I was expecting this ask even sooner, so I am thankful you gave me the opportunity to talk about  _The Strange Case of Milippa,_ because I do think it’s an interesting instance of fandom doing its own thing and canon ending up with a slack chain as a result.

About your question: Personally, I love ride or die devoted lovers/friends tropes, complex women and Captain/Second dynamics. Generally, I think the ship happening despite canon is a side-effect of  **promotion, timing and not enough female characters**. So, fasten your seatbelt for an abridged history of Milippa:

(Bear in mind, these are only my observations of the ship’s evolution on tumblr. Others might have a different perception of the show and the fandom.)

In a way, it all started because the show was justifiably proud of having [two](https://trekmovie.com/2017/07/25/sdcc-interview-sonequa-martin-green-on-ass-kicking-michelle-yeoh-and-inspiring-story-of-star-trek-discovery/) [women](https://www.etonline.com/exclusive-star-trek-discoverys-michelle-yeoh-says-series-empowering-racier-original-87723) [of](https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/star-trek-discovery-cast-photos/) [colour](http://collider.com/star-trek-discovery-image-michelle-yeoh-sonequa-martin-green/) [as](https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/news/a47100/star-trek-discovery-female-captain-mentor-relationship/) [leads](http://trekcore.com/blog/2017/06/sonequa-martin-green-on-star-trek-discovery-diversity-critics/) and mainly promoted Michael and Philippa during the first season’s production, even if it didn’t mean the Captain would be sticking around. If you go back [far](http://callmechikki.tumblr.com/post/160809390077/im-read-y-im-rea-dy-im-r-read-y) [enough](http://thali-lemmonpie.tumblr.com/post/166097456527/well-still-hurts) [in](http://startrekkeepsmealive.tumblr.com/post/161002798474/heres-a-spin-on-the-classic-spock-kirk-photo-d) [fanarts](http://darkelfslair.tumblr.com/post/167101158932/commission-for-cysgod-philippa-and-michael-from), you’ll see people may have started investing in their relationship, even shipping them, before the show began. Michael and Philippa were all over the promotional material and HELL YEAH TWO WOMEN IN ROLES THAT TEND TO BE EXCLUSIVELY FOR MEN OF COURSE PEOPLE ARE GOING TO BE INTO THAT.

The first episode happened, Philippa and Michael had a [fun](https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/racethewind10/165746016436), [cute](http://e-ripley.tumblr.com/post/165794745291) and [often intense](http://royalarmyofoz.tumblr.com/post/165957803827/star-trek-discovery-102-battle-at-the-binary) chemistry where there was no real hint of mother-daughter rapport and that could have easily been interpreted as [flirty](http://thatlightsaberlesbian.tumblr.com/post/170474799827/can-you-believe-that-the-very-first-scenes-we-see) had they been men or a man and a woman. They were simply really enjoyable together and it didn’t take much to read it as “First Officer has a crush on her Captain”, which is not unheard of in the Star Trek fandom (TOS, Voyager).

Philippa died. No one is ever dead in sci-fi, so we kept our fingers crossed for a return, in flashbacks at least. She [lived on in fanon](http://bisouette.tumblr.com/post/165779123203/dont-lose-hope) anyway, having pre-canon [complicated feelings for her First Officer](http://galinaredreznikov.tumblr.com/post/167337050731/an-ex-almost) or r[ising from the dead for an exhausted smooch](http://leifor.tumblr.com/post/166362510005/for-anonnim-who-asked-for-a-michaelphilippa). At this point, we’re four episodes in and  _still_  no mention of a mother-daughter relationship. This means we have  _months_  of fans kinda shipping them prior to the show combined with almost a month of the show being on air with no characterisation of their relationship in a [specific](https://onaperduamedee.tumblr.com/post/168379577565/i-think-its-more-than-a-friendship-there-is-a) [direction](https://speedygal.tumblr.com/post/166160501755/the-best-part-about-star-trek-discovery-being), except [Michael being awfully devoted to Philippa and affected by her death](http://trixielesbian.tumblr.com/post/166005757496/does-like-the-entirety-of-starfleet-know-that). [Fans weren’t](https://onaperduamedee.tumblr.com/post/168379577565/i-think-its-more-than-a-friendship-there-is-a) [wildly extrapolating.](http://startrekhugs.tumblr.com/post/167843778424/image-a-tweet-from-star-trek-discovery-writer)

[No](https://gaygeorgiou.tumblr.com/post/165754045603/the-way-michael-burnham-looks-at-philippa-georgiou), [seriously](http://darkelfslair.tumblr.com/post/165577633892/commission-for-threedollarhooker-commission), [the](https://lonely-night.tumblr.com/post/165761597120) [early](http://terapsina.tumblr.com/post/165722543906/starts-watching-dsc-and-sees-michael-and-philippa) [shipping](https://suika28.tumblr.com/post/166044331644/doodle-they-launch-a-vote-at-break-time-lol) [was](https://lonely-night.tumblr.com/post/165747954820/bottomkirk-michael-calls-captain-georgiou-by) [amazing](https://lonely-night.tumblr.com/post/165729662650/racethewind10-look-im-not-saying-that-im-only#notes): fans fell hard and headcanoned they had a thing in the past. This isn’t Doctor Who where River Song had a secret identity that could potentially reveal a familial bond with Amy: Michael already had [two mothers](http://thatlightsaberlesbian.tumblr.com/post/170519546157/i-dunno-every-time-they-bring-up-the-whole-idea). This is Star Trek where [Amanda and Sarek have a 40-year age difference or so](http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Sarek). This really did not seem wild at the time (not that there is anything wrong with big age gaps per se). Fans weren’t expecting the show to suddenly come out of the woods with such a specific characterisation of their relationship this late in the introductory game: dead mentor and grieving martyr were already enough.

That’s when the end of episode four came in and introduced the whole mother-daughter relationship (as well as ensure Philippa would never come back by making a Klingon snack out of her). Many might say  _now_  this dynamic was here from the start because Philippa was an older mentor, but I can assure you that from week to week it was not that evident, unless you assume every older woman  _must_  be a mother to younger characters. That’s coincidentally when I started shipping them out of sheer contempt for the trope of referring to any female mentor/protegée relationship as familial: it is my personal fictional arch nemesis, the female equivalent of “no homo”, that I seem to encounter in every fandom where there’s more than one female character.

[Fun times](https://lonely-night.tumblr.com/post/166221468525/i-pretty-damn-sure-that-my-mother-and-i-do). I remember seeing more than one shipper  _nope_ out of there, which is more than comprehensible: I was uncomfortable myself, but primarily because I am not half bad at analysing texts and their relationship really didn’t read as  maternal to me. Yet, one line could hardly erase weeks of shipping, of creating, of fandom building headcanons and a community around it. A bunch of truly [amazing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12761715/chapters/29114118) [fics](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12435843/chapters/28303383) and [fanarts](http://subspacecommunication.tumblr.com/post/166637304736/on-the-uss-shenzhou-they-dance) were produced fairly early and kept on being produced which cemented a community, however small. The introduction of the Emperor did not remotely help: the promo for the episode itself was [inexplicably gay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maz30XZocL0) and Milippa fans did spend a week flailing in anticipation speculating [this Philippa and that Michael might have a thing](https://suika28.tumblr.com/post/169947893394/never-lie-to-me-my-love-after-i-watched), the episode itself tossed around [lines and tropes generally used for star-crossed lovers](http://e-ripley.tumblr.com/post/170079916126) even if [“daughter” made a long-awaited reappearance](http://rhondaboneys.tumblr.com/post/170088727109), this time literal, and Michael kept missing Philippa to the point of abducting her autocratic blood-thirsty counterpart. Not even taking into account Michael and the Emperor’s interactions in the finale. I mean… 

Not everyone see the tension, of course, and the canon _does see_  their connection as maternal, but there is no denying that the season hinged on the strength of Philippa and Michael’s love (familial or not) and that this  _canonical_ intensity fuelled a ship that not only preexisted its labelling, but also was [not](https://jedifinn.tumblr.com/post/167452126317) [exactly](http://saqqaras.tumblr.com/post/169311352544) [lacking](http://booasaur.tumblr.com/post/169984337495/star-trek-discovery-1x12-our-bond-it-seems) [in](http://saqqaras.tumblr.com/post/170790265054/but-the-only-way-youre-going-to-get-past-me-is) [material](https://lonely-night.tumblr.com/post/170777337585/theminoruand-your-life-captain-yours#notes).   

There is no point in debating canon interpretations (I don’t create in or for canon), but there is something to say about intent vs. execution, because the gay vibes are  _there,_ so subtext is ours. I love what Daniel Ortberg had the guts to say concerning the Michael/Philippa situation when reviewing the finale for Vulture:

> _Then there’s a lot more excavating of the warped mother-daughter dynamics between Michael and Georgiou, which I could do without for two reasons:_
> 
> _1\. The amount of sexual tension between Mirror Georgiou and Michael is … let’s go with non-zero. Sure, part of that is because every Mirrorverse character is characterized primarily via Murderous Horniness (as evidenced when Georgiou takes a quick detour to have a threesome on Qo’noS), but there’s a lot going on between the two of them in all of their scenes._
> 
> _2\. The original Georgiou and Michael did not have that sort of relationship in the least! They were deeply fond of one another and Georgiou taught Michael a great deal, but Michael had a solid relationship with both of her parents and met Georgiou well into her own adulthood. There’s plenty of grist for the mill in terms of wanting to redeem herself and struggling for the approval of a lost mentor without adding Murder Mommy dynamics into the mix._
> 
> _([x](http://www.vulture.com/2018/02/star-trek-discovery-season-1-episode-15-finale-recap.html))_

Finally, I think it is worth mentioning that Philippa and Michael were also the first meaningful and long relationship between women on screen in Discovery. The second woman Michael interacts with is the prisoner and she leaves pretty quickly. The third is Ellen Landry and she is killed after one episode (which was just long enough for me to start shipping them together: I hate this show). Tilly was introduced in the third episode only and Michael doesn’t interact with any other woman before Katrina Cornwell in the mid-season finale. The femslash shipping options were not exactly varied: I clung onto what was/had been there. I know it’s not the first reason behind shipping Milippa, but it is a factor.

Again, this blurb solely reflects my views and observations. But I would be curious to read what [@mswyrr](https://tmblr.co/mAmd0uxt0uPfERP5Bn20Tow), [@nomi–sunrider](https://tmblr.co/mZRBVMfaOIi5JXfeUbmohSA) and other fans have to say about this.

**tl;dr: You had to be there. The shipping happened rather naturally _over weeks_ , but canon did not go there and the train was already launched so we ignored canon. Also I am petty and they are pretty.**


End file.
